


in the ocean we'll be born anew

by AWickedMemory (ReadyPlayerZero)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Art Snob Draco, HP: EWE, M/M, Shopkeeper Draco, Workaholic Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReadyPlayerZero/pseuds/AWickedMemory
Summary: Ten years after the war, Draco is running a shop in Muggle Venice. He has his routine. He likes his routine. His routine helps keep him safe and grounded.So of course Harry Potter shows up and bollockses it all up.





	in the ocean we'll be born anew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digthewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digthewriter/gifts).



> For **digthewriter** 's lovely prompt:  
>  _AU where Draco works at a shop and has no life. Everyone around him notices how lonely he is, except for Draco. And then Harry breezes in and everything changes._  
>  Special requests: Everyone sort of expects that Harry is going to help Draco, and take over, and basically be this ALPHA thing - and it turns out, when they are together, Harry is so needy of Draco - it blows his mind.
> 
> It doesn't fit the prompt to a tee - the special requests don't quite make it in there - but I hope you like it nonetheless!
> 
>  **Thank you** to [Duomi](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Duomi), as always, for betaing! All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
>  **Note:** Please be sure to have creator's style turned on. This fic uses a custom CSS skin.

Two thousand miles from the city lights  
You know we may just get to sleep at night  
And every morning we will start as new  
Look at the world from a different point of view

Draco’s routine started at half past five.

As Blaise and Pansy complained every time they visited, his early mornings were disgustingly unnecessary. Given that he lived in a city where the market got underway at 8 and his shop didn’t open until 10, there was no reason for him to be up before dawn, before the streets of Venice came alive with tourists and students and vendors and music.

In Draco’s opinion, that was _exactly_ the reason to be up. There was something almost spiritual in waking up to a silent world.

5:30, and he was stirring in bed. He was slowly waking up, clinging to the wisps of fading dreams, banishing the edges of nightmares. He was burrowing into his sheets, bundled up, blissfully warm, ready to rise but savouring those last few minutes of cosy comfort.

5:45, and he was padding into the kitchen, sometimes in a bathrobe, sometimes still sweetly starkers. He was preparing his coffee, sometimes a shot or two of espresso, sometimes a cup of cappuccino. He was seated at the tiny table by his tiny kitchen window, gazing out at the near-empty street running alongside the canal below and _breathing_.

6:00, and he was drinking his coffee at the kitchen counter. Depending on what he’d picked up or baked himself the night before, sometimes he had it with brioche, sometimes a doughnut, sometimes a piece of fruit. Preparing his own food and drinks rather than relying on a house elf to serve it to him had been more than a little difficult to get used to at first, but these days, he found it rather satisfying.

6:30, and he was dressed and out the door for a morning run before the streets flooded with human activity.

7:15, and he was greeting the couple who lived beneath him, and he was climbing the 42 steps to his door. He was showering and getting dressed. Once upon a time, he was making lists and plans in his head, but these days, there was nothing to make lists of.

7:45, and he was on his way to the market to pick up the day’s produce. This was another task that had once been tedious and overwhelming all in one, but which he now loved.

8:45, and he was home again. He was having another breakfast, this time tea with some toast, some fruit, a poached egg, some fried tomatoes. If he was particularly hungry, some baked beans or another slice of toast might find their way onto his plate.

9:45 A.M., and he was on his way up the road to his little shop.

6:05 P.M., and he was locking up, swinging by a few choice stores on his way out, examining art, clothes, snacks, drinks. He was saying hello and good-night to his fellow shopkeepers, his neighbours, polite smiles and dips of his head and clasped hands and well-wishes.

Some nights, he went out for dinner, strolling along the edges of the city to avoid the crowds. Other nights, he went home and cooked. After dinner it was time for wine or coffee or tea. It was time for an open window and a book, sometimes listening to music, sometimes using the sounds of the gradually quieting crowds outside as his background noise. It was time for sorting the post, responding to some letters, ignoring other letters. It was time for another glass of wine or coffee or tea, and then it was time to wash up, and by 10 or 11, it was time for bed.

At 28 years old, this was his routine.

This was his peace.

This was the calm before the storm.

  


* * *

  


Everything changed on a Saturday.

While Saturday marked the start of a weekend and rest to most people, to Draco, it kicked off his busiest days of work. Running a local art shop in a city that survived through tourism in a country famous for a culture of art and beauty, there wasn’t a single weekend in a year that didn’t see his precious little corner of the universe overwhelmed with the press of strangers unless water levels were bad, and sometimes even then.

Some weeks, these days caused him the despair of shopkeepers the world over. They were filled with forced smiles and false cheer as he greeted giggling, gawking, or grumbling guests. Most of them were from Europe, here on a one- or two-day excursion from their mundane lives, but there was no shortage of visitors from east Asia or North America, either. His nights ended in recording damaged or stolen merchandise and cleaning up after the colossal mess floods of people in a flooding city left in their wake.

Other weeks, however, Draco welcomed the rush.

As troublesome as travelers could be, it was always interesting to watch their interactions with one another and guess at their stories and live through their lives. That was why he’d picked such a busy city, after all. He couldn’t resist the promise of being able to get lost in a crowd or the temptation to be surrounded yet left alone. After the war, he hadn’t been able to step foot off the Manor without stares, jeers, flashes of cameras, pointed questions from journalists, passive-aggressive slights, or blatantly aggressive hexes. As appalling as the process of learning to live like a Muggle had been, Draco could sincerely say now that it was worth it.

Nobody bothered him these days. Blaise and Pansy and the Greengrass sisters came to visit every so often, ranging from once every other month to once every other year, but he’d barely even gotten through a full conversation with his mother since Lucius’s death.

As such, he could be forgiven for his shock when a ghost from his past walked in through his door in the shape of one Harry Potter.

  


* * *

  


On a somewhat satisfying note, Potter looked just as shocked to see him. Draco didn’t think he was that good an actor, so for the time being he was willing to assume that the shock was genuine.

“ _Malfoy?_ ”

If he hadn’t been desperately considering Apparating out, Draco might have laughed at the look on his former rival’s face. Potter stood frozen in the entryway, one hand still glued to the doorknob, eyes wide behind black frames, hair sticking up as wildly as ever. After a second, his gaze darted around rapidly as a noticeable tension built up in his shoulders—thin, filled out a bit from years of being an Auror, but still so _thin_ , what on _earth_?—but Draco had no idea what he was looking for. Threats? Death Eaters to jump out at him from behind a display rack? Reporters?

For once, the shop was enjoying a brief moment of emptiness. Draco wasn’t sure if that made this encounter better or worse. He could see the way Potter’s stunned stare landed on a rack of handmade hats, on a set of handcrafted books, on the wall of different paintings that had nothing to do with Venetian architecture or Carnival or Italy in general and were just interesting art. Potter passed quickly over the glass art hanging from the ceiling and the small stuffed animals in a basket, but they lingered on the iPhone in Draco’s hand before hitting the mug of steaming coffee in his other hand, then traveling up his arm to take in his button-down shirt, sleeves formally down but collar casually undone.

After a moment, Draco forced himself to relax, or at least give the appearance of doing so. It went _violently_ against his instincts, which roared for him to get away, chase Potter away, protect the fragile peace he’d built here… but panicking would only make it look like he had something to hide.

At least Potter looked like he wanted to flee as well. Oddly enough, that helped.

“The one and only,” he confirmed with a small, tight nod. “What are you doing here?”

“Me?” Potter gave a sharp laugh of disbelief. “I’m on holiday. What are _you_ doing here? Is this—are you _working_? With—”

—Muggles. Obviously.

The words were a little too close to Blaise’s, Pansy’s, and his mother’s general attitudes toward his current lifestyle, and Draco couldn’t help but get irritated. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “It’s my shop, so yes, I am. What of it?” he asked, tone and expression daring Potter to make a fuss over it.

“Your shop?” Potter finally stepped in, letting the door swing shut behind himself. “You own it? You _live_ here? Why?”

Draco sighed. “Because I like it. Because it’s beautiful. Because why not?”

Potter made a small dying sound.

Narrowing his eyes, Draco finally took the time to look over his ex-rival properly. Potter didn’t object, but Draco suspected that it was largely because he was taking the moment to do the same back. 

Potter looked… pretty much how Draco would have expected him to, had he thought about it.

Certainly he’d thought of him off and on over the years, but his appearance hadn’t factored highly in those idle musings. He’d grown, of course. Draco guessed that they were probably of a height now, or close to it. He wasn’t as skinny as Draco remembered, either; he reckoned it helped that he wasn’t being starved by Muggles every summer or ravaged by war. He _was_ still trim, however. 

(Trimmer than an Auror ought to be, Draco thought privately to himself, wondering if perhaps Boy Wonder hadn’t gone that route after all. He wasn’t much in touch with wizarding gossip these days.) 

Still, weight aside, he didn’t look bad. There were shadows under his eyes and a thinness to his cheeks that made Draco want to stuff him full of a well-marbled steak and some buttered bread, but he seemed healthy. Tired, perhaps even exhausted, definitely tense with stress that had been going on since long before he entered Draco’s shop, but reasonably taken care of nonetheless.

He was dressed comfortably Muggle in worn jeans and a well-loved burgundy shirt. They _fit_ , which was a nice change from the oversized clothing he’d worn throughout school when he wasn’t in Hogwarts robes or Weasley jumpers. He’d traded his glasses in for more modern ones, still black, but more rectangular and not as bulky as his signature circular ones had been. His hair was still a wild mess, however, and Draco couldn’t have said why that was reassuring.

He was otherwise unadorned. No coat, cloak, or robe; no necklaces or rings (no wife?) or wristwatch; no scandalous piercings or visible tattoos. His wand was nowhere in sight, although Draco had no doubt he could extract it at a moment’s notice if necessary. He carried himself with an unsurprising confidence. Then again, even when they were eleven and Potter was a tiny, unobtrusive little thing, he was stubborn as hell. He was the very definition of presence back then, and moreso now. 

The door opening behind Potter pulled Draco from his scrutiny, and he was gratified to see Potter startle as well. Several young customers entered laughing, closely followed by Abriana, the exuberant second daughter from Draco’s favourite bakery.

For the next few minutes, Draco busied himself with engaging the customers and bantering with Abriana. By the time the group calmed down enough to peruse on their own and Draco looked around again, Potter was gone.

Draco told himself he wasn’t disappointed.

(He almost even believed it.)

  


* * *

  


Draco wasn’t not-disappointed for long. The next day, at a quarter past ten, Potter was back, and back with intent: he pushed open the door and slipped in with two cans— _cans_!—of coffee. When Potter held one out to him, Draco shot it a scathing glare but obligingly took it anyway.

“If you’re trying to wine and dine me, a can of Lavazza is hardly the way to begin,” he drawled. Popping it open anyway, he took a sip and scowled. “ _Blasphemy_ , this swill is.”

“Yeah, well, if anything I remember about you is true, you’ll enjoy making fun of it more than drinking it, so it hardly seemed to matter.”

As it was the first thing Potter had said besides stating the obvious and asking stupid questions, Draco gave him a long look. If possible, he looked even more ragged than he had the day before, and Draco wondered if the mystery of his presence in Venice had kept him up last night.

If so, the man clearly had no life.

“Potter,” Draco began clearly and slowly, “we have been out of school for ten years. In your case, _more_ than ten years. Please don’t presume that I’m the same as when I was a spoiled teenager during a genocidal war.”

“Clearly not,” Potter muttered, looking around at the clearly Muggle shop again twitchily. “Look, I just—can we talk? I mean, obviously we were never friends or anything so you don’t owe me any of your time, but this...” He floundered, and Draco politely pretended he didn’t enjoy seeing him squirm. “We were still _something_ , and this is going to drive me mad until I know.”

“Know what?” Draco asked. “Why I’m living like a Muggle? Why I’m in Venice? Why I’m running a shop?”

“ _No_ ,” Potter replied emphatically before wincing. “Well—to be honest, yes. But also, no. More, why you seem...”

“Spit it out, Potter.”

Potter shifted restlessly. Once again, his eyes darted around the shop, and he toyed with the unopened can in his hands. “Are you free tonight?”

Draco stared.

Potter twitched and shifted again.

Draco blinked and stared some more. “You know, I was joking about the wining and dining.”

“What d’you—no! I’m not asking you out, Malfoy, for fuck’s sake,” Potter protested hastily, nearly losing his can a few times as he gesticulated a little too wildly. “I just meant I know you’re working right now, so it probably isn’t the best time. I wanted to be able to talk without watching our words or having your customers coming in and out the whole time.”

Draco reached over and grabbed Potter’s wrist, then pointedly removed the coffee and set it on the counter. Potter’s arm twitched, but he didn’t pull away until Draco let go. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” he asked once he was sure that Potter wasn’t going to take out any of his merchandise with a flying beverage. “You actually want to talk.”

Potter grimaced like the confession pained him, but he nodded nonetheless. “Yeah. To be honest, I didn’t even want to come here, but there was a work thing, and Hermione took matters into her own hands, and twenty-four hours later, I was out of England. I haven’t known what to do with myself since. I was just about to give up and go back home when I found you...”

“... And because you’re still a nosy git, now you need to solve the mystery of my life despite that it has _nothing to do with you_.” Draco shot him an unimpressed look. When Potter only shrugged in reply, slightly bony shoulders rising and falling helplessly, he sighed, tore a sheet of paper off of a pad he kept on the counter, grabbed a biro off the register, wrote quickly, and handed it to his old foe. “Go by the first address tonight and pick up some bread. Follow the directions to the second address, and be there no later than seven-thirty. If you’re not there, I’m going to assume you’ve changed your mind.” 

“I won’t change my mind,” Potter replied absently as he read over the directions. “But—bread? Why—” Cottoning on then, his eyes widened as they shot back up. “Is this where—where you’re staying?”

“Also known as my _home_ , but yes,” Draco drawled as the door opened and a young couple stepped in. “You wanted privacy. This is the best way to ensure it. Now if you’ll excuse me...”

He turned to greet his customers and welcome them to the city. When he looked back, Potter was gone once more.

  


* * *

  


At twenty past seven, there was a knock on Draco’s door. He took one last fortifying sip of wine—and then another—and hell, may as well drain the glass—before standing to let his guest in.

Potter stood nervously, looking around. Draco wondered again what exactly he was looking for. “There aren’t any curses, you know. I live around almost exclusively Muggles.”

Potter flushed a little. Draco told himself it wasn’t adorable.

(He almost even believed it.)

“I didn’t think there were. I’m just looking,” Potter replied a touch defensively. “You can’t blame me for being curious. It’s been a long time.”

“I _can_ blame you, actually. You’re the one who showed up in my city and wanted to talk,” Draco reminded. “So come in, eat, we’ll talk, and then you can go on your merry way.”

“Just like that.”

“Yes, just like that.” Draco stepped to the side for Potter to enter and shut the door behind him. He passed by him to lead him to the dining room. “I’d give you the grand tour, but you’re basically looking at all of it. We’ll just skip straight to dinner, shall we?”

Potter followed slowly, not bothering to try and hide his surprise as he peered around. “It’s… nice.”

“And by ‘nice’ you actually mean…?”

Finally, _finally_ unwinding a little, Potter grinned. “I mean that it looks nice. It’s a lot smaller than I would have expected for you, and the building’s a bit older, but it’s cosy and comfortable. I like it. I think I’m just _surprised_ that I like it.”

Draco frowned at him. “Potter, I grew up in a home that was established in the 11th century, not to mention Hogwarts from the 10th century. I like old buildings. I like their history and character over lifeless modern architecture. Besides,” he added in an offhand manner as he slipped into the kitchen to transfer the food onto plates, “it’s not that small. I own the building.”

“There we go,” Potter replied wryly. “I was really starting to question everything I once knew about you, so ta for that.”

Draco resisted the impulse to roll his eyes, if only because the gesture would be lost with Potter in the other room and he was all about economy of effort these days. “In that case, prepare to have your mind blown.”

He’d raised his voice slightly to account for their separation, but he needn’t have bothered. Potter popped his head into the doorway not a second after he spoke, wearing a wide-eyed look of alarm.

(And was that a _blush_ staining his cheeks?)

“What?”

Draco arched an eyebrow at him. “Because there will be further evidence of my changes in lifestyle and attitude since our good old days of mutual angry stalking? Did I really need to elaborate?” Potter blinked owlishly at him. “What did you _hear_?”

“Oh. I thought—yeah. That makes more sense.”

Thinking back over his words, Draco let out a soft snort of laughter. “I see. I did specify _mind_ , you know. Not other parts of your anatomy.”

Potter was definitely blushing now (and he couldn’t help but wonder…). “Yes, yes, I get it. Sorry, I haven’t really slept much in a while.”

Draco handed him one of the plates and shooed him toward the dining table. As they sat, he gave into curiosity: “Dare I ask how long is ‘a while’?”

Potter squinted. “Er…” Squinting more, he considered the question far too seriously, taking long enough that Draco had the wine uncorked and poured before he spoke again. “The summer after I started training, I reckon.”

Merlin. No wonder he looked like a wreck. “Does this lack of sleep by chance have anything to do with your current exile from England? What, did you cock up a case?”

“It’s not exile,” Potter protested, “and I didn’t cock up anything, thank you. I just maxed out my accrual of paid holidays again, so Hermione and Kingsley teamed up to make me take a few weeks off. Nothing so dramatic.”

“That depends on your perspective. What is this ‘again’?” Draco scoffed. “You’ve only been working for the Ministry what, eight years? How little time have you taken off for this to happen more than once in that period of time?”

Potter stuffed some bread in his mouth.

Draco set down his silverware and stared.

Potter’s chewing slowed.

Draco stared some more.

When Potter couldn’t possibly continue chewing any longer, he finally swallowed and ducked his head. “Er. I’ve gotten sick and injured a number of times, so I took days off for those.”

“That’s not _remotely_ the same thing. Potter, are you telling me that in the last decade, you’ve never gone on holiday? Not once? Even just to faff about at home?”

Potter began shredding his lamb shank rather aggressively. “The department was short-staffed after the war, you know, and I really do like my job most of the time—or, well, at least some of the— _enough_ of the time—and there’s always so much to do…”

“You are a dolt,” Draco informed him mildly. “If you’re so busy all the time, when do you ever have a chance to enjoy the peace and safety you’ve worked so hard for?”

“It’s not—I don’t do it for my own peace and safety. I do it so other people don’t have to,” Potter argued.

“You’re people, too, you know. Anyway, we have legally mandated paid leave for a reason. You’ll burn yourself out at this rate. Not that I care,” Draco added a little too hastily, “only it’s driven you to show up at my doorstep, so now it affects me.”

“Look, don’t worry about it, all right?” Potter sighed, stabbing into a piece of lamb and popping it into his mouth. “It’s not—”

He stopped abruptly as he clapped a hand over his mouth, wide-eyed all over again.

Irritation dissipating, Draco frowned worriedly. “Damn, I should have asked—can you eat lamb? Sorry, I was only meaning to get some decent protein and fat into you, I didn’t even think—”

Potter waved his free hand to cut him off. A few seconds later, he uncovered his face. “Bloody _hell_ , Malfoy. This is _delicious_. You didn’t make this, did you? When did you have the _time_?”

More startled by Potter’s effusive response than anything else since he’d first darkened his doorway, Draco could only gape at him for a moment. “God, you startled me. It’s one thing to stomp on your face on purpose, but I thought I’d accidentally killed you,” he huffed. “I closed the shop for lunch and came back to start the lamb so it would have a few hours to stew.”

“Since when do you _cook_?”

“Since I chose to live in a Muggle city and left our few remaining house elves behind with mother to maintain the Manor in my absence?”

Potter seemed dissatisfied with this response, but he let it go anyway. Draco suspected that he would have been grilled then and there with the dogged perseverance that Potter was known for if the man weren’t too busy stuffing his face.

Fortunately, because he _was_ too busy stuffing his face, Draco was more than happy to let silence fall as they ate.

  


* * *

  


Once Potter had all but licked his plate clean, they moved to the tiny table by his tiny kitchen window. As they sat overlooking the street, sipping their second bottle of wine and gazing out, Draco pointedly cleared his throat. “You wished to speak with me?”

Sighing, Potter sank back in his seat. “You don’t waste time, do you?”

“On the contrary,” Draco argued, “I _love_ wasting time. So long as I’m choosing when and how and why. Given that thus far I’ve agreed to this meeting, served you food, and allowed us to eat undisturbed, I think I’ve been phenomenally patient. Ordinarily, I’d assume you’re just being nosy and hoping to make sure I’m not killing Muggles in my spare time—”

“Of course not,” Potter interrupted tetchily. “Malfoy, I was the one who vouched for you. Obviously, I know you’re not really that evil.”

“You _knew_ I wasn’t really that evil,” Draco corrected. “You then spent the next ten years not knowing me at all whilst working a job that had you hunting down the worst of the worst, so it’s really a logical paranoia to have. That said, the only useful piece of information you've divulged is that your curiosity involves, but is not rooted in, my choice in living environments and employment, so do tell.”

Potter scratched his neck. “It’s really not. Yeah, I’m curious what brought you here, obviously, but I _do_ have enough tact to know that it’s none of my business, and sometimes it’s best to just let things rest. But… look, I already told you I work too much.”

“To the point of being exiled, yes.”

“It’s not exile,” Potter repeated, rolling his eyes. “But… Hermione may have a point that my long hours have had a bit of a… a not altogether positive effect on my overall physical and mental well-being.”

Draco very carefully did not tell him that that much was obvious.

“She seems to think I’m not sleeping or eating enough, that I’ve forgotten to relax, and some rubbish about never seeing me smile anymore.”

True, true, possibly true, and… hm. Draco had never been the target of Potter’s smiles anyway, so he couldn’t really see the difference there.

“So she wrote up this frankly ridiculous itinerary for me to go touring across Europe to ‘find myself’ or some such rot.”

And obviously that was working _so_ well.

“And it’s been driving me spare with boredom!” Potter blurted, finally coming animated as he gesticulated, again nearly throwing his glass. He managed to hold onto the stem, but couldn’t save the wine inside. “Oops, fuck, sorry—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Draco replied, waving a hand.

The spills immediately vanished, and Potter stared down with even wider eyes than the last two times. “You know—”

“Later,” Draco cut him off sharply. “On task, Potter.”

“Right. Uh…” Setting his glass down on the table, Potter fidgeted restlessly with the edge of the tablecloth. “Boredom. Right. I feel like I’m just wasting time here, going around, looking at a load of old buildings and artwork and elaborate gold pieces that are just more and more examples of the discrepancy in wealth throughout time, of people taking advantage of other people. I’m not even an art person, you know? And through it all, she’s booking me all these nice hotels when all I need is a bed without bugs or leaks, giving me lists of foods to try that I’m usually pretty indifferent to, and, I don’t know. I must be doing something wrong. I mean, who doesn’t like going on holiday?”

Potter fell silent. Even when one of his hands twitched hard enough to smack the underside of the table, all he did was scowl and drop the tablecloth, but he didn’t otherwise speak.

Draco frowned.

“Not to be callous and all, as I can see that you’re struggling, but… what does this have to do with me?” he asked when it became clear that Potter wasn’t going to speak again without prompting, except perhaps to make an excuse and dash for the door. “I’m not a therapist or a career counselor. I can’t exactly advise you to quit your job because it’s killing you, or to quit your holiday and go back to your job because you’re addicted to stress.”

Potter winced. “I know that. I’m not expecting—anything, really, honestly. Only, I arrive here, angry and frustrated and bored and making myself _more_ angry and frustrated and bored because I don’t know what I want and all I’m doing is proving Hermione right, and within the first hour I run into you, and you look—good. Calm, comfortable. You _belong_ here.”

 _I do?_ Draco wondered. He thought of Blaise, telling him he was repressing real life by hiding here in Venice. He thought of Pansy whinging at him to stop being a bore and go somewhere fun. He thought of his mother quietly and tiredly electing to live with her ghosts.

“And it makes me wonder how you did it. How you found this sort of—I hate to use this word, it sounds so ridiculous, but— _serenity_ here, despite… despite everything. The war, Dumbledore, having your whole world fall apart, watching your friends’ parents be imprisoned or killed, watching your—”

“My father,” Draco finished softly when Potter trailed off uncomfortably.

There was a saying about his family: one would never find a Malfoy at the scene of the crime, though their fingerprints might be all over the guilty wand. It had taken less than a year after the trial in which they all three went free for the people of wizarding England to decide that they were through with this mockery of justice. It took less than a year for resentment to spin into a thirst for vengeance. Less than a year for the attacks to begin until all three of them stopped going out in public.

Less than a year for an assassin to find a way onto the family grounds and murder Lucius in his own garden with his wife and son not twenty feet ahead, engrossed in a debate on how the family could move forward. With their backs to Lucius and the silent spell causing a silent death, they hadn’t turned to engage him until it was too late. Worse, the assassin was never captured.

Draco still had nightmares about his mother being next. His poor mother, a widow at not yet sixty, gaunt and alone in that mausoleum of a home. But she refused to leave, and he absolutely couldn’t stay.

Potter nodded tightly. “I hope your mother is doing well, at least. Well, all things considered.”

“She is, thank you,” Draco replied quietly with a small nod. Like him losing himself in the Venetian crowds, Narcissa Malfoy simultaneously sought company and solitude as well, only she fulfilled it by bringing her sister to live with her and helping to raise Teddy. Both of the former Black heiresses had now outlived a husband and a sister, and in Andromeda’s case, a daughter and son-in-law as well. “In an entirely unexpected twist after the war, she and her formerly-estranged sister now cling to each other as the last remaining vestiges of a once-grand family. She’s family to you, too, isn’t she? Andromeda Tonks.”

Wincing again, Potter nodded slowly. “I… yes, that was the intention, I suppose. I’m afraid I really haven’t been as present as I should have been these past few years. It was one thing when Teddy was too young to remember and I was busy with training, but things never really slowed down like I expected them to. And I should have been there more for Andromeda.”

“It’s not too late. As long as you’re alive, it’s never too late,” Draco reminded. “My mother and aunt hadn’t spoken in twenty years, and Teddy still has a year before he goes to Hogwarts.”

Potter wordlessly nodded again.

Draco poured him some more wine and sat back in his chair with his own glass, unsure of what to do. This wasn’t his business, and it wasn’t his responsibility. He wasn’t sure about serenity, but he _did_ like his quiet little life here, and Potter’s presence was the opposite of quiet. Still… he looked and sounded so miserable, and he _had_ done the Malfoys an undeserved good turn after the war.

“I’m afraid you’re attributing something to me that isn’t entirely there,” he began. “You’re not all wrong. I do like what I have here, and I am comfortable, more than I should be. But...” What could he even say? When everything was already as bad as could be, there was nowhere to go but up? When backed into enough of a corner, a man had to sink or swim? What useless platitudes. “Well, I’d like to say I didn’t have a choice, but I suppose you’re the sort who’d say there’s always a choice. I couldn’t stay,” he asserted simply with a shrug. “That’s all it came down to. In England, at the Manor, in the wizarding world—I couldn’t stay. So I started over. With the clothes on my back and a Muggle ID and a bank account of some converted currency, I moved through Europe mindlessly for a while until I settled here.”

Potter nodded again. Draco thought he’d never seen the man so agreeable in his life. “Can I ask why here?”

“Oh, the water.”

Starting, Potter frowned in confusion. “The dirty canals?”

“Shame on you; they’re beautiful,” Draco scolded, although mostly teasingly. “Yes, the canals, dirty and beautiful and all. The Adriatic Sea. The scattered, brilliant spots of bustling humanity floating in an expanse of bright nothingness and life.” Potter tilted his head like a curious owl, and Draco smiled. “You may remember the Slytherin dungeons were under the Black Lake. Wiltshire is between the English and Bristol Channels as well. I like the water.”

“But why Venice?” Potter asked. “It’s so busy here, it seems like the calming effect of water would be lost.”

“Water isn’t always calming,” Draco argued. “It can be powerful and awe-inspiring as much as it can be soothing. In all cases, I find it… cleansing, I suppose. It’s so much greater than me that it makes me feel like nothing I do really matters in the grand scheme of things. I suppose some might find that depressing, but as someone whose childhood actions led to terrible consequences, it’s honestly very reassuring.

“As for why Venice… I find it similarly reassuring to be able to get lost in a crowd. Nobody cares about me here. Nobody’s cursing my name, my hair, my parentage. Nobody’s throwing hexes at me or questioning my freedom. Nobody even looks at me sideways.” Draco had a feeling Potter, of all people, really could understand and appreciate the value of anonymity. “I went to small coastal towns first, but they felt so cold and isolated. It was too much like being trapped in the Manor again. Venice, at least, is alive.”

Potter nodded again, but this time, he didn’t make the silence linger. “I can tell. That you like it, I mean,” he clarified. “Or at least that it’s good for you. You look more content than I think I’ve ever seen you.”

Draco laughed, short and quiet. “Tell my mother that, won’t you? And Blaise and Pansy while you’re at it. The lot of them are convinced I’m a step away from becoming a monk.”

“Why?”

“Some rubbish about self-imposed isolation in penitence.” Draco waved vaguely. “Blaise lives and breathes blackmail, which requires the presence of other people, and Pansy is a social butterfly.” Who also lived and breathed blackmail, but it was _actually_ her job in a way, so he wasn’t about to tell an Auror that. “So they can’t understand why I like to live alone, away from wizardkind.”

Potter stared at him speculatively and did the curious owl tilt again. “You don’t get lonely?”

Draco shook his head. “Not really. Well… everyone has their moments, of course. But I like what I’ve built here.” His neighbours were polite and amicable and left him alone, his customers changed daily and were always full of stories, and he was on good terms with many of the local faces. It was comfortable. “I have a routine that fills my days well, and if I do feel lonely, I go for a walk and find someone traveling alone, usually a soul-searching artist on their Grand Tour, making the obligatory Venetian stop. Spend a few hours playing tour guide, discuss their muse or whatever they’re running away from, and then I go home.”

“You say Grand Tour like it means something specific,” Potter noted.

It was Draco’s turn to be confused. “Yes, of course. The traditional tour around Europe, historically done by young nobility as a rite of passage as learned men but something mostly young artists of the classics or art historians enjoy today. The specific sites can vary depending on the starting point and interests of the individual, but of course Italy is pivotal to any Grand Tour.”

Potter stared blankly.

“Florence, Venice, and Rome?” Draco prompted. “On account of the Renaissance?” Nothing. “Michelangelo? Leonardo da Vinci?”

Recognition finally dawned on Potter’s face. “Oh. I mean, of course I’ve heard of the Renaissance, but I don’t know anything about it other than that a load of paintings came out of it. I didn’t even know those blokes were Italian. And how do you know? They weren't wizards, were they?”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Draco sighed. “The Renaissance was about more than just paintings. It was a pivotal shift in human history. And Wizard or Muggle, the great masters carry weight. They’re only some of the most famous names in European history, that’s all.”

“ _That’s all_ ,” Potter mocked, snorting. “I haven’t exactly had the time to take an interest in classical art.”

“Classical art preceded the Renaissance by about—”

“ _Stop_ ,” Potter complained. “I just mean, you know. Older stuff. Classical as in the classics, not any particular era.”

“Uncultured swine,” Draco scoffed.

“Toff,” Potter shot back.

“ _Neanderthal_.”

“Fop!”

“You’re not wrong,” Draco acquiesced. Potter stumbled, clearly having expected an insult, and Draco smirked. “And not that I don’t enjoy exchanging such _charmingly_ mature repartee with you for old time’s sake… back to the topic at hand. Where has Granger sent you so far?” He knew even before Potter opened his mouth that he was going to ask _Why_? and cut him off preemptively. “You said she sent you to look at art and architecture. I run an art shop and have an interest in art history. At the least, I can probably explain why she sent you to those sites and what she hoped you'd glean from them.”

“I don’t remember what most of them were called,” Potter admitted, looking abashed. “They’re in my bag at the hotel. I could bring them over tomorrow, if you want?”

“Tomorrow?” Draco asked, amused. “You assume I’ll make time for you again.”

“You have a routine, right? So I can always just stalk you down at the shop or show up around the same time here,” Potter pointed out, reminding Draco for the first time that yes, insults to his intelligence aside, Potter was a trained observer. He'd have to watch his words. “If we make it after you finish work, then dinner’ll be on me this time. You’ll have to pick the place, though.”

“No, we won't be able to talk freely at a restaurant, not if any of Granger’s—Weasley’s now?—assignments are related to your profession or our world,” Draco argued. “I'll cook for us again, if only to see you have another foodgasm—”

“I didn't!” Potter protested, pink-cheeked.

“—and you can fetch the wine and dessert. Per my specifications, of course.”

Potter glared at him. “I can pick a decent wine, you know.”

Draco sighed. “Of course I don’t know. And that’s beside the point: you don’t know what I’m going to cook. _I_ don’t know what I’m going to cook. So come by in the morning, and I’ll give you instructions on what to buy and where to buy it.”

Deflating, Potter conceded the point.

Conversation dwindled after that, and it wasn’t long until Potter took his leave—but not before telling him to quit with the Potter/Granger/Weasley nonsense.

“We’re not schoolchildren or rivals anymore. In fact, we just survived a very civil dinner, and I didn’t feel the urge to hex you more than twice,” he pointed out. “I think we can graduate to our given names by now.”

“If you say so,” Draco replied doubtfully. He’d never so much as _thought_ of Potter as Harry in his life, and he was fairly certain the transition would be strange, to say the least. But it didn’t matter. It was fine. He was fine.

If that’s what Potter wanted, that’s what Harry would get.

  


* * *

  


For five days, this was the new routine:

10:30 A.M., and Harry would show up at the shop. He would pick up the day’s list from Draco and go run his assigned errands, whether they involved visiting particular statues, reliefs, and paintings, or whether they required a trip to a series of shops to pick up specific foods and drinks. Once, Draco even sent him to view the Palazzo Pubblico to visit Lorenzetti's _Allegory of Good and Bad Government_ in Siena five hours out of town—or what would have been five hours out of town if they weren’t wizards perfectly adept at Apparition.

7:20 P.M., and Harry would knock on Draco’s door. Draco would dish up the food, and Harry would set the table, and they would catch up on the trivial parts of the day.

7:30 P.M., and Harry would lose his mind over the homemade meals and make inappropriate noises. Draco would silently note each new hue that made its way into Harry’s skin as he quickly prospered with good food, good activity, and hopefully, good sleep. He relaxed as the too-pale, too-thin Auror began to fill out with more sun-kissed saturation to his skin, softer contours to his cheeks, lighter shadows under his bright eyes.

7:45 P.M., and they would get down to business as they ate. Harry would go down the list of sights he saw, and Draco would explain why each one was significant. After the first three days, Harry began analyzing the art himself (in other words, reading their accompanying plaques and thinking along the lines of “What would Hermione do?”) and suggesting why he thought they were significant, and Draco would agree, correct him, clarify, or elaborate.

9:30 P.M., and they would grow quiet. They would finish their final glasses of wine. Harry would offer to help Draco clean up, and Draco would decline.

9:45 P.M., and Harry would take his leave.

Draco told himself he wasn’t disappointed.

(He almost even believed it.)

  


* * *

  


Day six came.

9:45 P.M. came.

Instead of rising, Harry fingered the stem of his glass, a nervous energy buzzing around him.

Draco waited. He’d become very adept at waiting.

A few minutes before ten, Harry cleared his throat. “So I was wondering… are you really a step away from being a monk?”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Am I, an atheistic wizard, practicing religious asceticism?”

Harry flushed.

Draco _really_ liked that colour on him.

Fumbling with the glass, Harry quickly put it aside and took a deep breath. “No, I mean—are you celibate?”

Ah. So they were doing this, then.

Draco slowly set down his wine. “Not… exactly. It’s just been a while. I couldn’t risk it with Muggles, in case my magic reacted.”

“So then you’d—”

“Well, yes, ideally, but it’s not generally—”

“And if it were?”

“Then I suppose—”

The only door Harry went through that night was the one to Draco’s bedroom.

  


* * *

  


Day seven came.

For the first time, Draco fixed breakfast for Harry instead of dinner. For the first time, they walked together to his shop. For the first time, he sent Harry away with the list at the beginning of his day instead of half an hour into it. For the first time, he openly enjoyed watching his arse as he left, Harry pink-cheeked as he tried to hide his limp.

Otherwise, nothing else was different. It was another day of the new routine. Another day of errands and art. Another evening of dinner and discussion and debatable is-it-flirting-is-it-not. Hopefully it would end in another day of Harry not going back to his hotel room, but other than that, nothing had to change.

Or so Draco thought.

  


* * *

  


As soon as Harry walked in through the door that evening, he blurted out, “Don’t you ever take a day off?”

Draco blinked at him from where he patted down a healthy serving of pesto pasta. “Excuse me?”

“You said last night you’ve been here six years,” Harry replied as he set a bottle of wine and some fruit down on the table and entered the kitchen to grab the silverware. “I’ve been here eight days now, and you do the same thing every day, like clockwork. Don’t tell me you’ve been doing this for six years?”

“I have, and I haven’t.” Draco added some salad to the plate. “When nothing interrupts me, yes, I’m at the shop daily. When a friend visits, I close down while they’re here, or at least until they start annoying me. I take the occasional day off to do some traveling. But for the most part, yes, I work every day.”

“How are you any better than me, then?” Harry demanded, gaping. “At least I take weekends. Or, well, at least I take part of the weekend.”

Draco sighed very, very loudly and very, very pointedly. “Pouring over your cases from your dining room table on Sundays because you’re not allowed to go into the office is not the same thing as taking a weekend. Also, it’s _my shop_. It’s cosy and comforting to me. It’s essentially a guest parlour: somewhere I display interesting art I’ve come across, where people can come in and express their interest in purchasing the art. I can close down and leave whenever I want. It’s not the same thing at all.”

“It is,” Harry insisted. “I barely see you talking to anyone who isn’t a customer.”

“That’s because you’re here to talk to instead,” Draco drawled. “Normally I would take it slow coming home after work, dropping by some of my neighbours’ shops and catching up with them.”

Harry made a frustrated noise. “But that’s what I mean. They’re your _neighbours_ , not your friends. When you get lonely, you go find a Muggle to play tour guide for. Don’t you have any _people_ in your life?”

“Of course. Abriana the baker’s daughter is nearly a niece to me—”

“ _Real_ people, Draco.”

“She is real!”

“She’s ‘the baker’s daughter’!” Harry snapped as he set the table. “People who are _yours_. Friends, family, lovers, a support network!”

“I _enjoy_ being alone, Potter. I like the peace. I told you—”

“That’s rubbish. You were always surrounded by friends in school, even if it was just Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson—”

“Pansy is still my friend, thank you.”

“—Zabini, Nott, Bulstrode. You spend each day practically _alone_. You’re just the same as me, killing yourself, wasting your life. You’re just doing it slower than I am.”

“What exactly do you think you’re doing here, playing house for one?”

“Working like some plebeian instead of enjoying your freedom—”

This _was_ freedom. Having the choice to change was freedom.

“What are you wasting your life here for?”

“I don’t even know you anymore. The real Draco would never settle like this.”

It wasn’t settling. He _was_ real.

“When are you coming back to the real world?”

This _was_ his world now.

“We’re just trying to do what’s best for you.”

 _He_ could decide what was best for him.

“Stop being an idiot.”

“You’re lonely. You just won’t admit it.”

“Come home. Your real home.”

“You’ll never belong here.”

“You’re in denial.”

Draco slammed the plate down on the counter hard enough for it to crack. He ignored it; he could always fix it later, or bin it and buy a new one. “Get out,” he ordered coldly.

Harry faltered. “What? I—”

“Get _out_. I get enough of that know-it-all condescension of what’s best for me from Blaise and Pansy. At least they’ve been my friends for two decades. You have no right to do the same.”

“Seriously? Come on. It’s not—”

“Get out.”

“Draco, I—”

“ _GET OUT_.”

He hadn’t used wordless, wandless magic around Harry since the first visit, when he cleaned up the spilled wine. He hadn’t really meant to use it then, acting without thinking, caught somewhere halfway between not wielding a wand _because Muggles_ and feeling free to use magic _because Potter_.

He meant it now. 

The door unlocked and blew open, hitting the wall, chipping the stone. A blast of energy hit Harry in the chest, sending him over the table and toward the door. Reflexes keeping him from completely collapsing, Harry stumbled as he tried to recapture his footing, but another burst of energy shot at him again, knocking him into the wall.

“What the hell—?”

“What did you do?!”

“How did you just—”

“Calm down! You’re scaring me!”

Draco turned, hands clenched. He didn’t notice the contents of the salad go flying as the plate and utensils floated in the air and spun with him. “The difference, Potter, is that I’ve found real peace here. I know I fucked up, and fucked up badly. But I was only a teenager, the same as you. For _years_ every day was a punishment, and this is the first place I’ve found where I could build a new life and wasn’t judged for my crimes as a child.” 

Harry stood and opened his mouth, but Draco didn’t want to hear it. He lashed a hand through the air angrily, and Harry put a hand to his throat in shock as his voice was cut off. “Alone? Yes, I’m alone. Of bloody _course_ I get lonely. But it’s still worth it just to be away from all of that.”

Harry protested, lips moving silently as he gesticulated incomprehensibly. When he stepped forward, however, Draco sent another blast of magic at him to knock him back.

“I’m the only wizard I know of here, and everyone— _everyone_ —thinks I’ve been running away. But there’s a big difference between running away and starting anew. What good would it have done me to stubbornly stay put and die inside instead? There was no future for me in England anymore, at least not while I’m young enough to enjoy it. You don’t get to decide what is or isn’t right for me. You pushed your way into _my_ life, you disrupted _my_ peace, and now you’re lashing out at me for seeing a false parallel.

“I’ll thank you to remember that your misery is not actually my problem. My routine helps me while yours is _wrecking_ you. We are not the same people, we are not in the same circumstances, and we did not have the same experiences, and I _do not grant you the privilege of deciding what is right for me_.”

One more pulse of magic pulled the door open, and a final one swept a stunned and panicking Harry out. Just before the door slammed shut, he heard a distinct _SPLOOSH_ that precisely matched the sound a canal would make when an object roughly twelve stone dropped into it.

Another reason to love the water.

  


* * *

  


Draco stood there for a while, breaths short and sharp, fists quivering, fighting back another fury of magic that threatened to unfurl. He neither knew nor care how long it was before he calmed down enough to unclench.

He flexed his fingers, still feeling flickers of repressed magic but nothing that he couldn’t control. He flexed his mind, uncurling himself from behind the fortress that had flung up to protect his peace. He flexed his limbs, muscles taut, tight, terrible ache indicative of having been tense for too long.

He flexed his reason and his sympathy, and he almost felt bad for lashing out at Harry.

Almost.

He’d meant every word that he’d said. He still meant them. He’d paid his dues, and he’d struggled to carve out a life for himself that he could live with, and he wasn’t about to give that up. Not for his friends just because they thought they knew better, not for his mother just because she’d found acceptance in her sister, and not for bloody _Harry Potter_ who thought he could waltz into his life and upend within a matter of days.

He was lonely. He wasn’t _desperate_.

He had many things deserving of regret. He _did_ regret them, and he would until the day he died. He would be the first to admit that most of his early life had been one mistake after another. He’d hurt people from the time he was old enough to speak up through the war. He understood that now, and nothing could undo the harm he’d done by following blindly in his father’s footsteps and letting the lure of power twist him into being a terrible person. But he’d been spoiled, arrogant and proud, not evil.

This life? This work, this home? His expatriation?

These, he did not regret.

  


* * *

  


Draco fell back into his old routine.

It was shockingly easy.

In the part of his mind that was still prone to overanalyzing, he wondered if the ease with which he returned to his pre-Harry existence meant that Harry and his friends had a point. Maybe he was living in a bubble. Maybe he was too distant from other people. Maybe solitude was a security blanket for him, to not hurt others and to not let them hurt him.

The rest of him scoffed. _Sentiment_.

The truth was, Harry had only been a part of his life for a week. He’d known from the start that he would go back to England soon, that a fling revolving around familiarity and curiosity and art wouldn’t go anywhere. Life wasn’t some sort of melodrama, and he wasn’t about to have some grand epiphany. In fact, if he did see Harry again, it probably would be for the Auror to arrest him for using magic around Muggles. So of course he was fine with going back to his routine.

Certainly, some part of him kept expecting to see Harry come bursting through the door, all pent up frustration, or righteous indignation, or apologies for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Some part of him observed that his evenings suddenly felt unnervingly quiet, and he missed the semi-reliable company. But he’d already been through several life-shattering experiences in his earlier years, and this didn’t even begin to come close.

He missed Harry, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

  


* * *

  


One month to the day, and his home stopped feeling empty.

  


* * *

  


Two months to the day, and he stopped looking up hopefully when a tall man with dark, tousled hair came through his door.

  


* * *

  


Three months to the day, and he stopped thinking of Harry daily.

  


* * *

  


Four months to the day, Draco was really well and truly over it.

Which meant, of course, that four months and one day to the day was when Harry actually showed up.

  


* * *

  


Harry held up a hand as soon as Draco’s eyes landed on him. “Sorry, I’m sure you have a lot of words for me, but—but can I go first? I just—I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I almost owled you half a dozen times, and it took me this long to get the nerve to come back, and you probably don’t actually care, but—but I just—”

Draco was already sighing and shaking his head in exasperation halfway through the babble. “It’s fine,” he interrupted, voice calm despite the nervousness churning in his gut. “Give me a few minutes to close up the shop for lunch and we can talk.”

“I. Uh. Right, okay.” Rubbing his neck awkwardly, Harry looked around and seemed to belatedly realise that yes, there were in fact two other customers present, and yes, they were staring at him like he was a complete nutter. Which, well, they couldn’t precisely be blamed for.

After Draco flipped his sign to closed—after Draco answered some questions for his customers and rang up their purchases—after he gave them a recommendation for where to eat nearby, he finally locked the door and turned to stare at his visitor.

Four months, and all of his work had been undone. Harry was too thin again, with dark bags under his eyes and sallow skin. He shifted restlessly, _constantly_ , buzzing in his clothes, in his own skin. The frustrated half-mania he’d come with the first time around, however, was absent; instead, he looked nervous and worried and perhaps even a little terrified.

After a few long moments of assessing him, Draco tipped his head. “All right. Go on, then.”

“Right.” Harry took a deep breath, fished around in his pocket, and pulled out—were those _notecards_? Oh, Merlin. He pulled out notecards, although thank Salazar he didn’t actually use them much as he began speaking.

“First, I’ve got to apologise. You were right; it's your life, and it’s entirely your right to live it as you please. It was never my place to tell you what to do. It wasn’t when we were kids, and it wasn’t four months ago. I never tried to look at things from your perspective. Because of our long history, I assumed I understood you, but I didn’t. I didn’t understand you as a kid, when I thought you were evil and you weren’t, not really. I didn’t understand you as an adult, either.

“Secondly, you're right in that our circumstances are not the same. You obviously like it here, and you've built yourself something peaceful and safe. I should not have said you were stagnating just because I was. Our situations are different, and our experiences leading up to these situations are different. I let my frustration with my own life out on you, and it was completely unfair. I think… I think I was jealous.”

Harry’s voice wavered at the confession, but to his credit, he kept his eyes locked earnestly on Draco’s.

“Lastly, while I went about it all the wrong way, I wanted to say that the things I said came from a place of concern. Because I _don’t_ know what you’ve had going on since we were seventeen, the idea that maybe you were miserable, too, upset me. This is not an excuse. I shouldn’t have gotten angry and made accusations at you. I was just worried that maybe you were not as all right as you thought you were. And I—um. I know it was just a week, but I’d come to care about you. I didn’t like the idea that maybe you were struggling, too.”

Draco decided that Harry had _clearly_ gotten schooled by Hermione. This sort of neat, formal, systematic way of speaking wasn’t his style at all.

Then again, perhaps he shouldn’t make assumptions, either.

Harry continued. “You don’t owe me anything, and I know that. I showed up here and imposed my will on you, and you tolerated everything with the patience of a saint. I shouldn’t have returned that with criticising your decisions. You don’t need to forgive me, but I needed you to understand that I know I fucked up.”

He stopped talking, abruptly enough that Draco thought something was wrong. Well—something other than this entire situation, anyway. After a few seconds, Harry gave a stiff nod and shoved his notecards back into his pocket. “Um. That’s me, then.”

Draco took a deep breath. “Well. You have me at a disadvantage,” he admitted, and this time, his voice was not quite as calm. “I didn’t expect to see you again, so I didn’t have a speech prepared.”

Harry winced. “I can go if you’d rather. You don’t have to—”

“I do,” Draco interrupted him again. “Because I, as you so delicately put it, fucked up as well. I just need to organise my thoughts now.”

“I’m honestly amazed that you let me explain. It’s more than I deserve for being such a controlling arse,” Harry admitted.

“Not at all. I’m not angry with you. Really, I’m not,” Draco repeated at Harry’s doubtful look. “You had every right to question me. I’m not sorry for defending my decisions, but I _am_ sorry for my extreme and violent response. I hadn’t told you that it was a sensitive topic to begin with. You had no way of knowing how poorly I’d react, and I lashed out at you without any warning.”

“Yeah, about that, actually…”

“I’m getting there.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Are you a Legilimens now as well as a practitioner of nonverbal wandless magic?”

Draco huffed. “No. You’re just easy to read. And I said I’m getting there.” Harry went silent, and Draco continued. “While I refuse to apologize for starting a new life in Venice and for enjoying it, you were… probably not far off. You’re right, I haven’t really made proper friends here. Everyone is more of a neighbour than somebody I could think of like Blaise or my parents. They’re all Muggles, for one, so there’s only so much I can share with them. So you were right that I’m alone. I think I just don’t let myself think about it much. And that is not your problem, so I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you for hitting a nerve you didn’t know was there.”

“You’d handled my whinging about my holiday all week. Honestly, you were overdue to explode at me, I think,” Harry assured. “Especially given that we’d, er. We’d added sex to the mix, and that tends to make precarious situations more volatile, I think.”

“Yes, but no. That’s no excuse.” Draco crossed his arms. “I’m not a Legilimens, but I _am_ an Occlumens. I have long practice with picking and choosing what I let affect me. Incidentally, a certain… decrease in effectiveness at this particular skill factored into why I came to live amongst Muggles.”

Harry frowned. “Wouldn’t losing control mean you’d be less comfortable with Muggles?”

“Not at all. Muggles, you see, can’t curse me. They can’t throw hexes at me when my back is turned.” Draco gave a humourless smile. “They can’t silently kill someone I love a room’s length away from me.”

Harry flinched.

Draco shrugged one shoulder in a small, resigned gesture. “I know you hated my father, Harry. You have every right to. And I was quite angry with him by the end of the war as well, blaming him for leading me astray. But he was still the father I’d known and loved and looked up to my entire life. After years of being attacked whenever we’d go out in public, to have him murdered right behind me—I just couldn’t live around that anymore. It was putting me on edge, making me paranoid and constantly on the defensive.”

“But if you’re living solely around Muggles… sure, you won’t get attacked the same way. But you also can’t defend yourself. You never learned to fight, did you?” Harry asked. As soon as the words were out, realisation hit. “Oh. That’s why—”

“Not quite.” Draco grimaced. “Nonverbal magic was something I’d done on and off since we were starting at Hogwarts. Of course we all become habituated to basic everyday spells that we don’t need the incantations anymore, but I think it’s common for those growing up in wizarding households to do it a little more extensively, or at least a lot earlier. My parents didn’t verbalize spells unless it was something they rarely used.

“Extending that to wandless magic was an accident at first. I haven’t spoken with a specialist to determine if this is what actually happened, but my theory is that after growing up surrounded by magic my entire life and then abruptly not using it anymore, in addition to the trauma of the war and everything that came after… my magic needed out, and it was going to get out whether I wanted it to or not.”

Harry thought back to blowing up his Aunt Marge. He thought back to hair that wouldn’t stay cut. He thought back to a snake headed for the home it had never known. “I think that’s entirely reasonable, actually. I know a thing or two about unintentional magic myself.”

“Yes, I suspected you would,” Draco agreed. “But Blaise and Pansy, and even my mother and aunt, were not so blasé. In the beginning, it only happened when I was very angry or anxious, so they were understandably alarmed. I’ve got it under control now, other than when I blew up at you, but they’re still wary. They seem to consider it a symptom of the illness that is my life here rather than a side effect.”

“A symptom? Draco, it’s an amazing ability. There aren’t many witches or wizards who can manage it,” Harry argued. “Even if it started because of terrible circumstances, the fact that you’ve honed it into a controllable skill is something to be proud of. It’s beyond being a symptom or a side effect.”

Thrown by that effusive response—he’d become far more accustomed to his use of magic being seen as a questionable thing—Draco blinked at him and changed the subject. “Well, then. Are we done? Did you really come all this way just to apologise to me?”

“I—uh. Sort of?” Shifting from adamant right back to awkward, Harry ducked his head. “I may have done a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Yes. A… quit-my-job sort of thing.”

Draco stared at him. “You quit your job.”

“A bit.”

“You quit your job _a bit_?”

“No! I mean, yes. I mean—I submitted my resignation, yes. It’s not in effect yet, but I still had more paid holiday leave to burn, so I thought I may as well use it and come out here for a few days.” Harry pinkened slowly. “Not that I was expecting anything from you! I know you have your own life, and I figured it was even odds whether you’d talk to me at all, much less want me to come around again on a more frequent basis. But I had to try.”

Draco stared at him some more. Harry seemed to take it as a cue to continue rambling.

“That week I spent here—I can’t remember the last time I felt so alive and content all at once. I don’t think I have any particular affinity for water the way you do, and I didn’t enjoy traveling alone at all, so I could only assume it had to do with you. And that’s not—I’m not asking you to take me back. Er, not that i’m operating under any assumption that we were really together in the first place. Unless you considered us together, in which case, well, I would certainly be keen to see how that goes. But if not, that’s okay, _of course_ , and—and—why are you laughing?!”

“Because you’re talking about quitting your job and moving to Venice because of someone you hated for seven years and got reacquainted with for seven days. Because that’s ridiculous, and impulsive, and irrational, and it’s so completely you.”

“Oh.” Harry grinned sheepishly. “So… you don’t mind, then? Ron thought I was absolutely mad, and Hermione was worried that I’d drive you spare with my tendency to obsess.”

Pushing away from the door and approaching Harry, Draco tugged on his t-shirt and drew him in for a kiss. “Harry, I stalked you for the better part of our school years. I’m not one to criticise anybody for tending to obsess. No. I don’t mind at all.” He smirked. “It’s… sweet, in its own slightly mentally unhinged way.”

Harry shoved at him before immediately pulling him close again. “We’ll be a matched set, then.”

“That we will.”

Daylight and all I see is you  
The sun shines and all I see is you  
Always knew it could be like this  
We’d start today with a coffee kiss  
You tried to hide but I could see right through  
It took a while, but I finally got away with you

**Author's Note:**

> There is one more scene that is supposed to come at the end to fulfill one last piece of the prompt, but my life turned upside down in March/April and I ran out of time. It will be added as an epilogue after the fest!
> 
> Thank you so, so, so much to the admins for working with me on extensions as I scrambled to get this together around all of my unexpected life changes.
> 
> If so inclined, you're welcome to leave a comment here or at [LiveJournal](http://dracotops-harry.livejournal.com/339118.html). Thank you for reading! ♥


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